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342 THE MONTESSORI METHOD
of the colours," that is, the recognition of the identity of two colours. This is the first exercise of the chromatic sense.
Here, also, it is only the eye of the child that intervenes in the judgment, as it was with the exercises in dimension. This first colour exercise is easy, but the child must already have acquired a certain grade of education of the attention through preceding exercises, if he is to repeat this one with interest.
Meanwhile, the child has heard music; has walked on the line, while the directress played a rhythmic march. Little by little he has learned to accompany the music spontaneously with certain movements. This of course necessitates the repetition of the same music. (To acquire the sense of rhythm the repetition of the same exercise is necessary, as in all forms of education dealing with spontaneous activity.)
The exercises in silence are also repeated.
Third Grade
Exercises of Practical Life. The children wash themselves, dress and undress themselves, dust the tables, learn to handle various objects, etc.
Sense Exercises. We now introduce the child to the recognition of gradations of stimuli (tactile gradations, chromatic, etc.), allowing him to exercise himself freely.
We begin to present the stimuli for the sense of hearing (sounds, noises), and also the baric stimuli (the little tablets differing in weight).
Contemporaneously with the gradations we may present the plane gRometric insets. Here begins the education of the movement of the hand in following the contours of the insets, an exercise which, together with the other and con- |
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